Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry Is Doing to People by Dr. Tana Dineen Order on-line

ReviewsMidwest Book Review Psychology is an influential and accepted force in our culture. It has become a kind of industry that generates a great deal of money for its practitioners -- sometimes at the expense of the patient. Manufacturing Victims: What The Psychology Industry Is Doing To People describes the various types of psychological techniques and assumptions that create and cater to "victims", often to the damage of the patient, the division of families, the distortion of justice, the destruction of businesses, and the weakening of the nation. Individual chapters address Victim Making; Fabricated Victims; The Growth of the Psychology Industry; Selling Psychology as Science; The Business of Psychology; The Technology of Victim Making; and Talking Back Our Private Lives. Manufacturing Victims is a serious and long needed assessment of what is happening with increasing frequency in this lucrative and widespread area of mental health services. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The publisher, Robert Davies Publishing : rdppub@netcom.ca , January 8, 1998 This gun is not for hire The Los Angeles Daily Journal called the author a clinician who slams the expert-witness racket, with judges being seduced into allowing dubiously or not properly qualified psychology experts to influence legal decisions and verdicts. The real growth industry, the author went on, is in family law, where judges often decide that everyone in a family needs counselling. We have psychologized everything, and have stoped looking at the evidence. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The publisher, Robert Davies Publishing, rdppub.com, rdppub@vir.com , January 21, 1997 As reviewed by Dr Laura Schlessinger on Jan 15, 1997 Dr. Laura Schlessinger says of MANUFACTURING VICTIMS (by Dr Tana Dineen, Robert Davies Publishing) ‘This is a first. This is the book I think you ought to read.I love it. I am a fan, Dr. Dineen.' "should be required reading for anyone receiving therapy, as well as for those who earn their living in this field" Approximate transcript of THE DR LAURA SHOW, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, January 15, 1997 "Hi, I'm Doctor Laura Schlessinger, I'm going to recommend a book in a moment. This is a first....This is the book I think you ought to read. It's called Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is Doing to People by a psychologist, Tana Dineen, and it just came out; came out in Canada so you may have to work at this if you are in the United States. I want to read part of the review. I love this. I must say I guess there is some narcissism in here, it reflects that which I have been saying, of course I like it. Alright; Tana Dineen is a psychologist with more than two decades of experience, is alarmed by the trend in psychotherapy. In her book Manufacturing Victims she is embarrassed to be associated with her profession. (I'm going to jump.) The hucksters substitute personal belief for scientific fact (no kidding) and have managed to persuade North Americans that there must be some psychological solution to all of life's pains. And that's what I have been saying. Morals, values, ethics, courage, grit, conscience, character are irrelevant (you're hurting. Okay going right ahead) She said that she demonstrates that psychology is a business (no kidding) that has dramatically expanded its client base by convincing more and more of us that we have been emotionally wounded and now require professional help to recover. While practicing psychologists used to spend the majority of their time treating and studying genuine mental illness, Dineen shows how the business has shifted to ordinary people's ‘inner children'.- your inner child. (There is one guy who had made a whole career out of this garbage, and you suck it up, friends.) Functioning adult clients are being encouraged to dwell on their weaknesses rather than their strengths (That's true!) and the end result isn't a healthier, more capable populace, but an increasingly insecure one obsessed with imperfection. Advertisements advise people that if they are experiencing normal and inescapable emotions such as anger, fear, guilt sadness, anxiety or loneliness, they should consider counselling. It jumps ahead, "a woman who discovers a cock-roach in her morning muffin or a man who is disturbed by a toy penis on a co-worker's desk can find a psychologist who'll find them to be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which is a condition once reserved for war veterans, natural-disaster victims or death-camp survivors. (They've now been elevated to that level of suffering because he couldn't hack a toy penis on a desk. I hear this crap all the time. That's why when I go on shows and I'm with; I remember one thing I did on CNN and the attorney says ‘Yes but we found a psychologist to say that', and I went "Phhtt, a dime a dozen", and the other attorney said "Yes that's true because I've hired them too.") Jumping right ahead: "There's a chilling study of people who received United States's government funded psychological treatment after claiming to have recovered previously repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse (it's the new in thing.) It found that while 10 percent of those people had been suicidal prior to therapy, 67 per cent became suicidal afterward. Three years after therapy had begun, most of them had lost their jobs and had had suffered marital breakdowns. (I believe that.) Jumping to the end, she said: her scathing, "Her scathing (this article was written by Donna Laframboise (I took Spanish and German, I think I said that right). It's special to the Gazette in Montreal, it's very well written.) assessment of the industry should be required reading for anyone receiving therapy, as well as for those who earn their living in this field. (Laughing - I love this; this is so; Dr. Dineen if you are listening can you sign a book to me, I'm a fan, I am. Alright, I'm very pleased.) Let me give you the name of the book again; MANUFACTURING VICTIMS (I remember one time, I was at a hotel for an event unrelated to psychotherapy, I want to remind you that in the State of California I am licensed as a marriage and family therapist, okay, but I'm at the hotel for fun and chuckles, and on the floor they had a room where you could come and get coffee, tea and crullers. And I'm sitting there and there is a whole lot of people with tags on, so I just started chatting with a fellow who was a psychologist, evidently there was a psychological convention there. And he didn't know who I was, had no clue, just a woman sitting there stuffing her face with crullers. And I was in jeans, and did not look relevant to anything that I am. So he was chatting with me and telling me all the sessions he's going to and at the end of it I said "Are you a CPA?" and he said "No I'm a psychologist, this is all business stuff, how to get patients, how to keep patients, how to get them to pay more, to get the insurance to pay. I said "Are you in any meetings where they actually teach you the profession and you learn up and coming events?" He goes:"I think there are some of those."

Customer Comments
Average Customer Review:
4.5 out of 5 stars
Number of Reviews: 4

A reader from Cleveland, OH , October 27, 1998 4 out of 5 stars Excellent book -- Make certain to read this book -- it injects a healthy dose of reality into the popular view of psychology. It also points out the many angles from which psychology bombards the average consumer. The necessity for psychology is ingrained in Americans, and for a person to reject its "truths" is so shocking, we must conclude that the person is in denial.

Note to the editors: the past tense of "LEAD a horse to water" is "LED a horse to water."

A reader from Virginia , May 4, 1998 3 out of 5 stars When she hits the target she gets the bullseye Dr. Dineen is certainly right when she attacks the many sloppy and poorly trained therapists in the world today. Psychology has become the new religion, and like all religions it has spawned a disturbing assortment of irrational cults. Foremost among them is "trauma theory"--the dogma that virtually all psychological problems stem from abuse and neglect in early childhood. The patient must, it follows, learn to hate the abusive parents and blame every disappointment and failure in life on them. What is not blamed on parents is blamed on "society" in general and on relatively trivial day to day traumas like finding a bug in your food, getting into a shouting match with your lover or having your purse snatched. The author is absolutely correct that there is no evidence that childhood experiences determine adult behavior, and that there are many people who have experienced far worse traumas than middle class Westerners could ever imagine and show no signs of psychopathology. Obviosly there is no need to bring everyone into the mental health system. There are those who need care and those who don't. Dineen exposes a virtual conspiracy among some mental health care providers to make everyone a patient and label everyone in society as fundamentally weak and flawed. Needless to say, I appreciated many aspects of this book. But before I sign off, I must complain about a few things. Dr. Dineen is great at criticizing the quack theories and fuzzy thinking others, but offers few suggestions about helping those who actually have mental illnesses. At times, she seems to shrug the whole issue off. It is clear from the book that she does not take the approach of Thomas Szasz and deny that mental illness exists. For example, she refers to schizophrenia as a biological condition, which it is. I was a little uncertain, however, about where she stands on clinical depression, manic depression and the various anxiety disorders like O.C.D Her tone seems very critical of anyone who is in treatment for any kind of "neurotic" disorder. However, the same type of modern brain research which proved that schizophrenia is a brain disease suggests the same thing about many types of depression and anxiety disorders. They are really not "neuroses" or psychological problems in adjustment at all. When a person suffering from clinical depression is lying in bed sobbing and unable to get shower or get dressed, it is not because they are lazy or weak. It is because they have a chemical imbalance that makes their thinking disorganized and their feelings oversensitive. Dineen seems to ignore most of the brain science revolution in the past two decades. Instead of abandoning quack "trauma" therapy for genuine empirical facts about human behaviors and the illnesses which can effect them, she opts for a lot of old platitudes about vaguely defined "personal responsibility." But being told to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and keep your chin up can no more cure clinical depression than it can anemia or diabetes. To put it another way, lets say you have panic attacks. A run of the mill trauma therapist would blame your parents and say that maybe they had frightened and terrorized you as a child, and if you hated and rejected them enough you would be well. Dr. Dineen, it seems, would just consider you lazy and irresponsible and tell you to get a life. Both approaches would cause more harm than good. When it comes to psychiatric illness, it is not profitable to blame your parents or yourself--get medical care and adjust the flawed brain chemistry. Also get a good non-judgmental therapist to practice supportive therapy if you are in a crisis period. Dineen gets so caught up in bashing her opponants that she forgot to guide people who actually need mental health care in the right direction.

A reader from Ottawa Canada , August 18, 1997 5 out of 5 stars Excellent I too am a victim of a manufactured victim. My wife started psychiatric and group therapy for an addiction problem. It has apparently solved her addiction problem, but has changed her personality to the point that I wonder how much longer our (26 year) marriage can last. She now blames her parents (whom she used to love and respect) and me (in spite of her addiction, and including during her extended non-use periods, we had a very happy marriage) for her problems; in fact, she now blames my parents as well (for the way that I 'turned out'), and became furious when I told her that I had a normal (though not always blissful) childhood. I have been skeptical of psychology since my college courses (30 years ago). How can so many different schools of psychology exist, each with its strict adherents and defenders; if something is true, can it be split up into so many different 'sects'?). How can anyone claim to 'understand' another person by only knowing a few minutes (per week) of a subjective (and often, distorted) self-account of their past? How can people like Freud (who had a very disturbed life, including sexual problems and an obsessive fear of death) and Skinner (whose own daughter despised and disowned him) profess to lead others to mental health? And why do psychiatrists have the highest (or second highest, according to some studies) suicide rate of any profession - is this an example of "the blind leading the blind"? The number of teen suicides, violent crimes, sex abuse, family breakups, addictions, sexually- transmitted diseases and other ills of our society has increased in direct proportion to our dependence on psychologists, psychiatrists and pills (and to our decreasing religious values). And when I recently read that 400,000 American children are on Prozac, and that the company has requested permission to market coloured and flavoured Prozac pills (=candy) for children ....

A reader , September 26, 1996 5 out of 5 stars A must-read book What some readers have been saying about MANUFACTURING VICTIMS: “This book is dynamite and I can’t wait to see the reaction. Manufacturing Victims is a sizzling expose of the Psychology Industry. While showing tremendous compassion towards real victims of rape, accidents and torture, Dr. Tana Dineen skillfully takes the Psychology Industry to task for destroying families, promoting hostile views of men and women, promoting distrust and suspicion, and misusing science.” Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, Professor of Psychology, University of Washington, co-author, The Myth of Repressed Memory “Manufacturing Victims is a spirited and deeply principled critique of the inanities and abuses of contemporary psychology. Let us hope it serves as a welcome antidote for our society’s spreading addiction to toxic therapy.” Theodore Roszak, author,The Making of a Counter Culture “A devastating critique of the business of psychotherapy. Well done. Badly needed. Long overdue. It will make a lot of people mad. I hope it makes them take a hard look at the sins of the profession. Dr. Sam Keen, former editor, Psychology Today, author, Fire in the Belly “This penetrating, insightful and carefully documented expose will add depth and power to the national chorus of voices calling for legislative reform of the mental health industry. Dr. Dineen has performed a major service to vulnerable consumers and taxpayers who are too often called upon to bear the burdens of dangerous experimental procedures and other forms of consumer fraud disguised as ‘mental health treatment.’” Prof. R. Christopher Barden, President, National Associationfor Consumer Protection in Mental Health Practices “As many of us are aware, many clinical psychologists and psychriatists are ‘manufacturing victims,’ and living off their creations, who are, sadly, real people. All of us concerned with what is going on can profit greatly from reading this book cover to cover.” Dr. Robyn Dawes, Acting Department Head, Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University,author, House of Cards: Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth